Archive for month: January, 2011

"A new survey of 36,000 frequent travelers about their hotel loyalty programs shows that one out of five members rely on mobile to communicate with their loyalty program, whether Hilton HHonors, InterContinental's Priority Club or Marriott Rewards.

The 2010 Frequent Traveler Survey was conducted by Loylogic, a company that develops technology for loyalty programs, to better understand frequent travelers' opinions towards their current loyalty programs and reward redemption."

"Facebook users who check in to a store or click the "like" button for a brand may soon find those actions retransmitted on their friends' pages as a "Sponsored Story" paid for by advertisers.

Currently there is no way for users to decline this feature.

Facebook says this lets advertisers promote word-of-mouth recommendations that people already made on the site. They play up things people do on the site that might get lost in the mass of links, photos, status updates and other content users share on the world's largest social network."

"Social media isn’t innovative rather it is how, what and why people use it that creates innovation.

Consider the rate of change and interest in conversations. People exchanging what they know with others and learning what others know. On the fringes is people leveraging both to discover what nobody knows, innovation.

Innovation is what fuels an economy. Without innovation things remain the same and with innovation things change, some dramatically."

Lodging Interactive, an award winning Interactive and Social Media Marketing Agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry, today cautioned hoteliers to not use links generated from free URL shorting services in their marketing materials or their websites.

“Last year we cautioned hoteliers to not use links generated from free URL shortening services in their marketing as these links were increasingly being blocked and filtered out by companies as a result of the rampant abuse, rendering them ineffective,” stated Mr. DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive’s Founder & President. “McAfee® LabsTM recently released their 2011 Threats Predictions report which support our views on why hoteliers should not use the free URL shortening services.”

The McAfee Labs report states, “We see a growing number of these (free shortening URL services) used for spam, scamming and other malicious purposes.” The report goes on to say, “The trouble and abuse follows because users do not know where these shortened links actually lead until the click them.”

If the aforementioned security concerns don't convince you that free link shortening services are risky, maybe our next point will. What happens to all those free links your created if the free service is "down" or out of business? Who do you call…can you call anyone, or do you have to rely on emailing support? In the meantime, those free short links you created are in your printed ads, emails and in online Twitter, YouTube and Facebook posts! This has all happened before, and it's not pretty. Read: TinyURL Outage Illustrates the Service's Risk. Read: Bit.ly + TinyURL = Fail.

Other Reasons to Never Use Free Link Shortening Services –

There is no branding. When you see a TinyURL your are clicking blindly. You have no idea what kind of website you're being taken to;

Links are forgettable! How do you remember a link like this: http://bit.ly/10HYCo;

No control over the URL shortening service. Do you trust TinyURL? How long might they be around? What happens if they have a massive data outage tomorrow and all your URLs go to 404 error?

The Right Way For Hotels to Create Short Links –

Link2Brand.com enables hotels to effectively and safely create short marketing links and to build online brand equity. More specifically, Link2Brand.

is a paid service, thereby eliminating all spam or phishing activities;

offers unique branding opportunities with over 20 selectable relevant domain names that relate to hotels and every link created includes the hotel's name;

"Hundreds of hotels worldwide are doing it right and leveraging the power of Link2brand.com in their marketing and communications," said Mr. DJ Vallauri. "Furthermore, Link2Brand.com is a great tool for hotels to use to promote loyalty amongst local businesses and organizations."

Hotel Sales & Marketing Directors can also use Link2Brand.com to create vanity URL links specifically for local corporate accounts to book reservations without having to remember booking codes or SRP codes.

Interested hoteliers can try Link2Brand for free by visiting Link2Brand.com.

"Google Places With Hotpot allows you to search for locations nearby based on a number of categories like restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, ATMs and tourist attractions. As with services like Yelp, you’re able to see top-rated locations nearby, rating and reviewing directly from your phone."

"It’s been repeated endlessly and yet the message seems to never get through! A website is not a one time, one-off project just to get to a permanent position of Google PageRank One. Visitor traffic and search engine indexing are constantly changing. SEO is an ongoing process reflecting movement and performance, which constantly modifies website ranking."

"Hotel offerings such as wireless Internet, babysitting services or even an on-site bar can make or break a consumer's decision to book a particular hotel property. So, what do consumers really want in a hotel? Orbitz thinks it has the answer."

Have you heard of SMO…Social Media Optimization? This…is a "Gotta Know" from Lodging Intertactive. Have you heard of the Commingle Social Media Tool Bar ? This…is an exclusive "Gotta Know" from Lodging Interactive. Are you aware that Facebook is teaming up with Bing? Or, what a QR Code is and how it can and will effect your business? Both are "Gotta Knows" from your hospitality marketing expert Lodging Interactive. And get the latest scoop on Commingle. It's all about TRUST these days and there is no better, more trusted authority in the hospitality marketing space than Lodging Interactive.

"Many travelers turn to social sites when planning a trip, to find destinations, deals and advice and reviews from other travelers on where to stay and what to do. And social media venues are critical to sharing photos and stories about trips after the fact. But as the sites become more important to travelers’ lives in general they are increasingly taking social media with them while they’re away as well."

"The differences between a tweet and a Facebook status update are much broader than Twitter's 140-character limit. Veteran community managers know that the content, context, and approach to these platforms are very different, and hinge upon an important distinction. On Facebook, the goal is user interaction, while on Twitter, it's all about brand evangelism, with retweets acting as the most valuable currency."